In short-The small population of Arab natives along with a native Jewish minority welcomed a relatively small number of European Jewish refugees in the (edit:20’s and early) 30’s while under British rule (but with a date set for their independence by the League of Nations, a date that came and went without ever establishing a Palestinian state). Then in the 40’s (even by mid 30’s)the Jewish minority, America, and England ignored their pleas to minimize immigration, ignored immigration laws, and invited a major invasion, so many European Jews came illegally that the Arab natives quickly became the minority, then had all rights stripped by the now well armed invaders that now claimed their land and property…invaders that kept coming by the millions. How is that not an invasion of squatters?
It’s a complete abandonment of the Palestinian Mandate the Brits ruled under, which was allowed internationally after ww1 for the sole purpose of getting Palestine in a position to rule themselves, something the Brits failed to even try then actively sabotaged by supporting the mass immigration of millions of European Jews, and was the biggest possible “fuck off and die” to the Palestinian people that had cooperated fully with the international plan for their independent future that was unceremoniously stripped from them and handed to Israel.
From that point, details don’t matter so much. Invading occupying forces don’t get to whine because the natives won’t just go away and die….at least I’m not listening when they do. Want to stop being attacked, stop murdering innocents and taking land.

I wonder why you think Israel is not so dominant seeing as they already proved repeatedly their military dominance even when their neighbors band together. Not one of the countries you mentioned has an advanced military, they are last gen at best, really two or more generations behind, and have third world resources not trillions to spend. Iraq proved that advanced weapons beat numbers hands down every single time. Unless Iran gets a nuke capable of getting through the highest levels of missile defense on the planet, their “neighbors” (Palestines allies) pose no actual threat to Israel and a pretty minor threat to the expansionist settlers invading Palestine.

I never ignored any rolls of the neighbors supporting, arming, and instigating unrest…but those roles are minuscule compared to the actions of Israel. Nothing recruits for Hamas like the Israeli army. Nothing creates more terrorists than murderous settlers. No other factor has 1% the effect that Israel’s own actions do in creating enemies.
Murderous expansionist settlers should be eliminated with prejudice immediately. They are the biggest factor driving Israel’s murderous regime to murder more innocents.
If Israel acted civilly instead of treating the natives like the Nazis treated them, its neighbors couldn’t easily convince angry teens to pick up guns and shoot Israelis. Give the Palestinians something to lose, or they’ll have nothing to lose, a chip on their shoulder, and a clear enemy responsible for their plight. This is the official recipe for a terrorist.

Blaming the neighbors is like claiming N Carolina is RESPONSIBLE for all shootings in N Y because some guns used are procured there…nonsense. They are complicit, but minimally so. It’s the shooters motives you need to look at, not the store they use. Why are they so ready to sacrifice their lives to just shoot or throw rocks AT Israel (99/100 times hitting nothing)? Because they have nothing to lose but life in an ever shrinking ghetto ruled over by a foreign racist regime that wants them just gone and is more than happy to starve children to death and bomb refugee camps to accomplish that goal.
The neighbors didn’t invade, expel, ghettoize, and gleefully murder the Palestinian people, that was Israel.

Blaming the victims is not an argument that will win many over…and no question the Palestinian people are the TRUE and only victims.

Where are the European countries now…the same ones that facilitated the Jewish invasion should be obligated to enforce the borders, and/or take the Palestinian refugees and free them from the ghetto/prison Israel keeps them in….but none are.

Side note- I keep hearing people who support Palestinians described as anti semitic. It bears noting that European Jews, the VAST majority of Israelis, are NOT Semitic…but all Palestinians are. Being pro-Israel is actually and factually anti-Semitic.

IF they really learned enough to justify the enormous cost, good for them and it is a “success”. That remains to be seen, I think even they won’t know until their next shot. If it has 6 motor failures, that’s advancement, but enough?

It’s not a great sign that near 1/4 of the motors failed in 4 minutes…that’s a whole lot of failures to figure out. It’s unlikely one thing caused them to fail, and they need to solve every single issue before they can put people on board. I hope they got enough data. I do want this to work.

This is a different mindset/methodology to designing a vehicle for getting to space, one we aren’t used to. Edit: Rapid Advancement through intentional failure. It will be interesting to see how this gamble pays off. Great risk can bring great rewards…or great failures.

I would say to Hatfield, yes, many airplanes failed their first test flights…but none were 1/10 as expensive or complicated as this rocket. Failures here are many orders of magnitude more expensive, so really NEED to produce major advancements quickly to be a viable method for designing rockets. The Wright bros only lost some cloth and wood when they failed.

...so? Presidents and other national leaders attend a huge variety of functions, and aren't going to want to do a run-through for every single one of them. A brief overview of his role on a note card seems a very pragmatic solution. I do want to point out that it doesn't tell him what to say - the President's staff expects he'll be able to improvise something serviceable. Because he's an intelligent, capable adult human being.

Oh, and that clip of him saying something about "dropped dead unexpectedly" - that looks like stuttering to me. He seemed to be trying to say something else, and just couldn't get it out. His backup word choice was inelegant at best. Stuttering is something Biden's known to have struggled with for most of his life, and generally he handles it very well. Sometimes though he seems to still stumble on something, and this might've been a case of that. Maybe not - maybe he had a total brain fart / senior moment and we should be concerned... but it certainly didn't seem like a noteworthy incident to me.

Meanwhile, in actual important news: the J6 hearings have demonstrated the former President clearly made numerous efforts to remain in power despite having definitely lost in a fair election. (Well, fair in terms of having been run competently and without demonstrable fraud. Trump still had what I consider a significant unfair advantage in that Republicans have an inherent edge via the Electoral College. He just lost the popular vote by MORE this time around, leading to a loss of the EC as well.)

It might be, if there was any evidence whatsoever of these claims….but….

“Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that people were paid $10 per ballot in Georgia’s November 2020 election because it is misleading and unproven. This assertion from Trump is based on a complaint about ballot harvesting, which has prompted an investigation by the Georgia’s Secretary of State office. True the Vote has not identified the witness who claims he was paid, and the group is not alleging that the ballots themselves were fraudulent. Georgia investigators previously looked into a similar allegation and said there was not enough evidence to justify an investigation. “

Despite no more evidence, Georgia is claiming to investigate this unsubstantiated anonymous claim again as of January ….good luck, doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, another baseless hypothetical claim.

One partisan “trump won” group claimed one alleged anonymous person made the unsubstantiated claim they were paid to “harvest ballots” back in 2021 but the investigation went no where because there was no evidence, no claimant, no proof of payment, not even a suggestion that any ballots were tampered with.

Very unlike the same schemes by N Carolina Republicans in 2016 who did collect open/unsealed ballots and admitted to filling them out for Republicans in any race the voter had not voted in….but you don’t want to hear about more proven voter fraud, you want to talk about unproven hypothetical voter fraud.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-north-carolina/north-carolina-republican-operative-charged-in-election-fraud-scheme-idUSKCN1QG2FS

Republicans do want, actually need election fraud. Fraudulently denying legitimate voters their vote is a kind of voter fraud, and is definitely part of the right wing playbook, Trump once admitted Republicans would never win another election if every citizen over 18 voted. Republicans, not Democrats or Independents, keep getting found guilty of it, over and over and over and over and over and over……and over and over and over. Sometimes massive schemes like the one above….or the president actually saying on television that his voters should vote twice, once by mail and again in person and see if they’re caught.

If you think no one wants election fraud, you need to look again.

I do want to note: the CDC literally recommends 4 doses of the polio vaccine.

Do want.

Not really the first, but the most ridiculous in quite a while.

Some democrats don’t care about sensible gun laws. Some do want little more than actual background checks for all sales, like me. I don’t want violent felons to have easy access to them, nor people with active charges for kidnapping, murder, stalking, terrorism, etc. I don’t see any need for a public registry, although a closed/non public registry would make tracking firearms found after being used in a crime easier, as well as removing guns from people deemed a threat due to real, diagnosed mental defect or disease. This bill was insanely lax in defining what qualifies there, one of many things that made it not just bad, but horrific....and doa.

It’s odd, my brother, who lives in Austin too, says the same thing. He loves to blame ex-Californians for crazy laws, but most of the laws and regulations he complains about don’t exist here. I guess we got rid of our nuts? Thanks for taking them off our hands!

I’ll watch it later when the wife’s asleep.

Game not over.
Just warming up.

You do want a fair election, correct?

You need them, they could help you learn English so you would look less like a Russian troll.
You could also use help with American history, a subject 100% of immigrant citizens know better than you, they had to pass a civics test as part of citizenship, a test you would fail miserably....almost like you aren't even from America, comrade.

Don't ever....EVER...use "we" to describe American sentiment, you do not reflect us. Plenty of Americans do want to help desperate refugees, just not the party that drapes themselves in the flag and cross while denouncing all that those symbols stand for.

Trump is the one wasting our government dollars on photo opps at the border with no legitimate use....by which I mean the blatant ploy to "deploy" thousands of troops at the border a week before the election to intercept the rampaging brown invasion that he's convinced morons is coming.....maybe.....in a few months. What do you think it costs to deploy thousands of troops for nothing for 8+ weeks? Probably more than fully supporting every person in the caravan for years.
One single Trump trip to Maralago or another of his golf courses costs taxpayers at least as much (some costs are classified, so not included in the >$3 million average cost) as yearly resettlement costs for >2000 refugees, including their background checks, housing assistance, etc. He's taken 159 golf trips so far, you do the math and gasp.

*facepalm

Side note: it did not go unnoticed that your reply had nothing whatsoever to do with my comments, and didn't address a single point contained therein.

Democrats followed the rule of law.
Republicans want a last minute FBI investigation, Democrats have wanted one for months.

No corroborating witnesses were allowed, that's different from there being none.

Flake and those with him, at least 3 at last count and growing.

Who told you it's a repressed memory? She's been talking about it for 6 years, which is documented, and there's no evidence she ever repressed it.

Ha! Instantly switching from 'didn't happen' to 'it's normal behavior' . No, I'm no saint, but I never forced myself on another person, and I don't lie about my past in order to get a lifetime job judging others.
Yes, sexual fumblings that equate to sexual attacks are disqualifying. If you think that's normal or proper, you likely are guilty. I do want to live in a society where sexual predators must answer for their misdeeds, not walk away without consequences. You have daughters, don't you? It's ok with you if some boys push them into a room and grope them forcefully, you'll just tell them those boys were immature, so the assault/ rape attempt doesn't count?

He isn't a justice yet, and this isn't a trial. It's a job interview. Not being advanced to the highest court is not losing his career. Having his past examined before a lifetime appointment is not a criminal trial. What BS.

Are you saying there aren't right wing candidates that don't have sexual assaults in their backgrounds? I guess we'll just have to put off filling the seat until a left leaning judge is nominated then....by the next president to follow precedent.

Kavanaugh's morality is being successfully questioned and so clearly is not above reproach. You're wrong on both counts.

I personally can't even begin to imagine wanting to teach in an "at risk" sort of environment. It's awesome that there are people like her that do want to be part of the solution in those kinds of places, but you couldn't pay me enough or otherwise motivate me to voluntarily work in that kind of environment.

That being said, it makes it all the more obvious that if you do have somebody like that on your staff, you'd damn well better listen to every single suggestion or idea that they have and do your utmost to keep them there and happy. If the environment is so bad that it forces someone like that out, that really wants to be there, it is a massive red flag.

I doubt that the school stays open. That might be for the best -- sometimes it is best to put a wounded beast out of its misery.

?
Why did you quote this to me?

Edit: was this meant to show that some on the left do want trumpeteers eradicated? If so, I think get the fuck out is a step lower, and he's just one person, but point taken, that is disappointing.

I doubt that. ;-)

Except for territory they hold, I agree, Palestinian suffering is their only influence, and that's not much.

I agree, because we back them, Israel does as it pleases. I do think the 'arab world' has legitimate complaints beyond Palestinian suffering, like constantly expanding borders and expulsion from historical holy sites.

I see no chance for a single state (where non Jews are sub-citizens with no vote or power) or an Israeli designed two state (where only barren desert is Palestinian with all water and access controlled by Israel, shut off at any hint of complaint).

The Palestinians do want a two state solution, just not one where any land worth having is Israel and the leftovers are Palestine.

Israel gains nothing from negotiating when they can get what they want, like recognition of another land grab (Jerusalem) without negotiating. That's why this move is horrendous, it gives them incentives to not negotiate and just act unilaterally.

I don't think propaganda is that important to them that they actually prefer their allies suffering to reasonable resolutions, but I don't think that any reasonable resolutions are being offered or even discussed. Given that, what's the option? Outright war? With us backing Israel, that's a no go.

I think, if given a solution that didn't give everything to Israel, the Palestinians would jump at it (maybe not Hamas, but the people). Being offered second class citizenship after having all their land and possessions taken is not workable, and it's what they seem to get.

If N Korea sells Iran a nuke, I hope we can we go back to negotiations instead of genocidal one sided dictations.

I agree, there are definitely sites like the one you linked to that can get an idea across with visuals / media / flash / whatever that would be impossible or drastically less efficient with pure text.

To me, uBlock Origin or Adblock with Element Hiding Helper is capable of finding a happy medium around 90% of the time.

I like Dilbert. Up until about a year or so ago, there was a URL to go to a page that had the latest comic with simple links to back/forward navigation. No comments or other extraneous stuff. Then Scott Adams did a site redesign and added a fuckload of ads, a "blog" about Adams' political opinions that I don't give 2 shits about, social media links, tags, comments, a star rating, and a "BUY" button. If I'm not running my browser maximized, all that crap pushes the single bit of content that I actually DO want (the comic image) so far out of frame that I have to scroll down to see it. F that.

uBlock itself takes care of the ads. Everything else that annoys me is gone by using the "element picker", which filters out sections or bits of HTML that I can choose. So now, when I visit dilbert.com I get the 3 most recent comic images with a title/date line and *nothing* else.

Videosift isn't immune on my PC either. The "social panel" for each video? Gone. Facebook "likebox"? Gone.

I've run into a few pages that detect custom filtering in a way similar to ad blocking detection. Sometimes, I can just select those "warning" elements and hide them -- especially if they are in a floating frame that simply loads on top of the actual page content. Sometimes those warnings actually prevent the page content from loading. Something from wired did that recently. I haven't clicked through to a wired article since.